


Oh Goddess, Stand Up for Bastards

by siderealOtaku



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AU - The Slithers Make Different Choices, Disguise, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not actually involving OCs, Political Intrigue, Slow Burn, altered character backstories, spoilers for all routes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 23:49:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21466555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siderealOtaku/pseuds/siderealOtaku
Summary: The three goals of Ferdinand von Aegir: Surpass Edelgard. Catch the eye of the Emperor's Shadow. Figure out why thoughts of Albain Cornwall, a mere Golden Deer commoner, keep distracting him from that second objective.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	1. Not What We Ought to Say (Ferdinand)

As he rushes through the monastery halls at a borderline-running, not at all composed, definitively _not _noble-appropriate pace, Ferdinand von Aegir thinks to himself that this was all supposed to be _perfect.   
_

He was finally here. At Garreg Mach. Had made his way, through hard work and endless training, to none other than Fodlan's most prestigious academy. And not only accepted, but accepted _alongside Lady Edelgard, _in the same _class _nonetheless, where he could test himself against her and prove his superiority day after day for an entire year. 

His father the Duke Aegir had been prouder of him than he could ever remember the man being, even presenting Ferdinand with a brand new suit of armor and a horse from his own prized breeding line before his son had left for the monastery. 

At the celebratory banquet held in honor of the new class of students, Lord Arundel himself had placed a hand on Ferdinand's shoulder and said that he could already tell he would make a fine Prime Minister someday, that he would be exactly the sort of guiding, tempering hand which Lady Edelgard would require during her rein. 

Not to mention, the most unexpected development of them all: a mere two months before the new Black Eagle House's departure, the Emperor-to-be's shadowy right hand had cornered him after a state dinner, shoved a thorn-tipped orange rose into his gloved hands, and demanded permission to court him. 

A blushing, somewhat stammering acceptance, a conversation between fathers, a formal petition brought before Emperor Ionius in public and Lord Arundel in secret later, and, while nothing was quite set in Crest-stone yet, a betrothal between the eldest sons of von Vestra and von Aegir was certainly being _considered _on all sides. 

He was at Garreg Mach, among the best of the best, the elitist of the elite, the noblest of the noble. His future was set, with Lord Arundel already eyeing him for the Prime Minister position. Opportunities to surpass Edelgard lurked around every corner. And he was receiving stilted but kind notes and regular gifts of flowers from none other than _Hubert von Vestra, _who might wind up becoming his _intended _before the school year was out. 

Then why, Ferdinand thinks with something disconcertingly like _despair, _has everything been going so_ wrong_? 

First, the Knights of Seiros had taken the house leaders out on a special training mission for just the three of them. They had been gone for days, with lessons suspended for the rest of the students for the duration. Ferdinand found himself wandering the monastery, far too little to do with far too much time to do it in. He spent most of his hours in the stables, grooming his new mount and absolutely _fuming _over the fact that _he, _Ferdinand von Aegir, future Prime Minister of the Adrestian Empire, had not been allowed to go on this special training trip while Lady Edelgard _had. _Meaning that nearly an entire week had gone by without him being able to prove his superiority. Even worse, she was probably showing off those axe-and-sword skills (which were nothing short of impressive, he had begrudgingly admitted to himself) to Sir Alois Rangeld and the other Knights. Earning all sorts of _praise _and _adulation _which should rightly belong to _him_!

As if that wasn't bad enough, things were going rather less than perfectly on the courting front as well. Predictably, Hubert had been rather irritable all week - Ferdinand knew that his maybe-betrothed hated leaving his liege lord alone, and absolutely chafed at the audacity of the Archbishop daring to remove Lady Edelgard from his presence for such an extended period of time. But when Ferdinand had gamely, day after day, made offers of shared meals or teatimes or trainings, the von Vestra heir had stoically refused his every single suggestion. As though their entire courtship could be carried out without so much as spending a single afternoon together! 

And, lastly, there was this saints-damned _monastery _to serve as the setting to Ferdinand von Aegir's personal tragedy. His room was small and stuffy, nowhere near as large or opulent as befit a noble of his status. He had thought being two rooms down from Hubert would encourage the other man to visit him, but the only person who ever knocked on his door was the second son of von Bergliez seeking out a sparring partner. 

Plus, he kept getting _lost.   
_

It was undignified! Embarrassing! He had been raised in mansions and castles, in the highest halls of the Adrestian court, and yet, even after nearly a week, Ferdinand simply could not seem to find his way around the monastery. He would head for the stables and somehow end up at the market, or start for the dining hall early yet arrive far beyond the boundaries of "fashionably late" and well into "shamefully, scandalously so". 

Currently, he was trying to find his way to the classroom assigned to students of the Black Eagle House, having gotten all the way back to his room following an all-afternoon study session (if Edelgard was getting in all that extra combat experience with the Knights, then clearly Ferdinand should focus on besting her in more scholarly pursuits) before realizing that he had left his quill pen behind. 

And although the route had seemed straightforward on the way _there, _the way _back _to the classroom was proving quite frustrating. It was as though, before his very eyes, some wicked spirit had transfigured the monastery into an endless labyrinth of twisting passageways and hedges too thick to see through. Finally, after what felt like nearly an hour of searching, Ferdinand catches sight of the large, partially-open wooden doors which signaled the entrance to the classroom...

...only to find out, after stumbling quickly inside, that it is not _his _classroom at all. 

He must have gotten more lost than he had realized - for, hanging upon the high walls of the room were, not the two-headed eagle of the Adrestian Empire cast in deep crimson, but a capering hart picked out in bold yellow-and-black threads. This was not the Eagles' classroom, but rather that assigned to students hailing from the lands of the Leicester Alliance: the Golden Deer House. 

_At least, _Ferdinand thinks, _nobody has witnessed my ignoble folly._

A moment later, he is forced to revise that thought as he hears the shuffle of papers and a deep, vaguely accented voice calling out "Is someone there?" from somewhere near the back of the classroom. 

"Er, sorry," the orange-haired Adrestian replies, rather less composed than he prefers to be during such interactions. "I...seem to have found myself in the wrong classroom." 

He hopes to slink out the door before whoever-it-is has the chance to see him, and realize that it was _Ferdinand von Aegir _who had made such a blunder. Unfortunately, he is too late. Before he can reach the safety of the fading afternoon light, a male figure crosses the room and stands before him. 

Squinting in the leftover sunlight, Ferdinand studies the individual whom he has unintentionally disturbed. He is tall, taller than the von Aegir heir by a good several inches, and the type of thin which heralds a mix between "frequent training" and "just as frequently forgetting meals". His hair - long, held back in a severe ponytail which frames a sharp-boned, aristocratic face - initially seems a light brown or perhaps blonde. The future prime minister of Adrestia does not recognize him, at least from this brief survey. A commoner, perhaps? He had heard that this year's iteration of the Golden Deer house featured several such individuals. 

The student adjusts the oval-shaped frames ringing his eyes. It takes a moment, but then the name of the strange viewing devices comes to Ferdinand: _glasses. _(A traveling merchant had attempted to sell them in Enbarr during the last market season, calling them "all the range in the Alliance". Her efforts, of course, had been for nought. Everyone who was anyone knew that the nobles of the Imperial capital boasted nothing less than perfect eyesight.) 

The man who Ferdinand has disturbed takes a step closer - he is near-sighted, perhaps? - as though attempting to take the measure of the noble who had so indecorously stumbled into his classroom and disturbed his study. His eyes narrow behind the thick glasses. For a moment, Ferdinand thinks that they are yellow, like snake's eyes, or the scales of the golden-fish which populate the monastery pond. Another step, another shift of brightness and shadow and no, it must have been nothing more than a trick of the light. The stranger's eyes are the muddy, completely unremarkable brown common among Alliance villagers. 

"You are..." The commoner does not seem to recognize him. _Him. _How impudent! True, he is of the Empire, and this student is of the Alliance, but he would have thought that a family name like his would carry weight across all of Fodlan. 

"I am Ferdinand von Aegir," he says, somewhat imperiously. He doesn't particularly care about the identity of this impertinent commoner, but it would be impolite not to ask. "And you are...?" 

Instead of responding, the commoner takes yet another step forward, finally crossing from the shadows of the classroom into the light of the setting sun. Ferdinand sees that yet another element of his initial assessment had been incorrect. The Deer's hair isn't blonde or pale brown. It's _white, _the same stark, pristine white as Lady Edelgard's own tresses. 

Finally, a connection _snaps _into place deep within Ferdinand's brain. A white-haired noble girl, black magic prodigy, darling of the Golden Deer, youngest among the newly enrolled class. A rumor, popular among the Empire's gossip-mongers a few years ago: that Count Ordelia of the Alliance, despite having a true-born, Crest-bearing daughter, had acknowledged the existence of a bastard son - a bastard _commoner _son, born to a village herb-woman. That the boy - "Albain Cornwall," at last Ferdinand remembers his name - had refused the position of heir, but had moved into the Ordelia mansion to study magic alongside his younger sister. 

And now that rumor stands before him, tall and sharp-boned and glowering and as real as the embarrassed flush which rises to Ferdinand's cheeks. 

_What noble in his right mind sends a bastard son, even a publicly acknowledged one, to a place like Garreg Mach?   
_

Lost in such thoughts as he is, Ferdinand finds that the words are out of his mouth before he can hope to recall them: "You're that Ordelia bastard! What are you doing here?" 

Albain Cornwall raises one snow-white eyebrow, the look on his face somewhere between "utter offense" and "sardonic amusement". "I'm studying. In my classroom." 

The von Aegir heir shakes his head. "No - no, I didn't mean what are you doing _here_, I meant..." He is in too deep, now, he has shown himself to be rude, utterly _churlish, _and there is simply no escape, no way to rectify this. 

Albain's smirk sours along with his tone. "You mean what am I doing at Garreg Mach, then. Oh, don't worry, you're far from the first to ask me that, Ferdinand von Aegir, and Saints know you won't be the last. My father and Countess Ordelia worry, you see, because Lysithea is only fifteen, and they didn't quite think her ready to go off into the world all on her own. So here I am, Albain the afterthought, beautifully tragic guardian and minder to the tragically beautiful Lysithea von Ordelia. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get to the dining hall before they stop serving supper, and you_ do _happen to be standing in my way." 

The Ordelia bastard does not wait for Ferdinand to move. Instead, he roughly shoulders past him, as though he were a particularly irritating stack of hay bales rather than the future Prime Minister of an entire Empire. The noble wants to call out, to say _something _to end the bizarre interaction on a slightly less awkward note, but he watches the tense line of Albain's retreating back and finds that the words simply stick in his throat. 

Once the white-haired figure has vanished, Ferdinand decides that retrieving his lost quill pen can wait until the morning. He begins to retrace his steps towards his room, mumbling prayers to the Goddess and any Saint who might be listening as he does so. (And if they sound less like prayers to bring him quickly to his destination without getting lost and more like prayers for a divine miracle to open a pit directly under his feet and swallow him up, well, at least there's nobody around to overhear him.)


	2. The Prince of Darkness is a Gentleman (Albain)

He doesn't go to the dining hall. He _should, _he knows - he'd missed lunch as well - but he finds his composure too shaken up, the idea of idle chatter among classmates twists in the pit of his stomach. Instead, while the empty-headed fop of a noble prances off towards the second-floor dormitories (well, presumably so, although he was going in entirely the wrong direction), he turns his own steps towards the first-floor commoner's quarters.   


His room is blessedly empty, blessedly quiet - fortunately, both Victor in the room to the left of his and Kirsten to the right are the type to linger over meals. The Ordelia bastard sags against the door, all the rigid stillness draining out of his shoulders seemingly at once.   


For a moment, the white-haired lets himself feel irritation. Of all the people who inhabited the monastery, it had to be _Ferdinand von Aegir _who had stumbled into his damned classroom. Luckily, the idiot was too busy prattling on and staring stupidly to notice much of anything, and the Golden Deer student had been able to store the books he had been carefully studying before any questions arose. 

He's gotten used to the words. _Bastard. What are you doing here? _They didn't bother him (so he told himself).   


And yet, from the von Aegir heir's lips, they had stung like poison-tipped arrows.   


"You haven't changed a bit, Ferdinand von Aegir," he says to himself, his voice a low, contemplative rumble. And he hadn't, really. So much of..._everything _that the noble had always been was still there. The sunshine-colored hair and those sparkling eyes to match. The blustery, yet somehow endearing habit of declaring his own name far too frequently. The...

The white-haired student cuts off the thought at the root before it can blossom. Even if nothing about Ferdinand has changed, _he _has changed more than enough for the both of them. The Aegir heir would not be a wrinkle in his plan. He had been less prepared than he thought he would be, but no more. He was just another student, just another idiotic, simpering noble, just another obstacle in the way of his goal.   


The bastard son crosses to his mirror in three long, decisive strides. The sturdy rectangular glass is the only luxury which he allows to decorate his dormitory. It is, after all, not a mere frivolity - it is a tool. To remind himself of who he is. To remind himself of what he must do.   


First, the man removes his glasses, blinking a few times to re-adjust his eyes to normal levels of un-tinted light. The eyes which stare back at him in the mirror are not an unassuming, muddy brown - they are only made to appear so via the combination of darkened glass and a small illusion charm. In truth, they are gold-green and narrow, with a piercing way of staring right through whomever they were looking at - eyes which, long ago in another life, had frequently been compared to those of a snake.   


Next, he undoes the simple leather cord binding his long, snow-hued ponytail. With careful, measured movements, he gathers up the bulk of the released hair and arranges it over his right shoulder, draping a curtain of white over one eye.   


Preparations finally complete, he returns his gaze to the mirror.   


Albain Cornwall has vanished, a fantasy as insubstantial as morning mist.   


Hubert von Vestra stares back at him.   


Lips moving silently, he recites a mantra which has become second nature to him over the many years spent living a lie: _I am Hubert von Vestra, of House Vestra which dwells in the shadows, only son and true heir to Marquis Vestra, left hand of the Adrestian Emperor. The thing which stands at Lady Edelgard's side is not me. It is an impostor. It is a falsehood. I will destroy it, and those who control it. I will save her. All this I do for my Empire and for my Lady.   
_

Back when all of this had started, Hubert had thought the mantra foolish. How could he_ forget _who he was, his purpose, his goal. But he has been "Albain Cornwall" for years now. He walks and talks, dresses and acts, like a different man. He responds to the name as though it were his own. Sometimes, he feels as though Hubert von Vestra is slipping away from him entirely.   


The mantra grounds him. The mantra brings him back to who he is - and to why he is here. Hubert is not at Garreg Mach to study, nor to jockey for some higher position within the Alliance, the Kingdom or the Empire. And he's definitely not here to make friends with obnoxious nobles like Ferdinand von Aegir.   


The fool could be trouble. A distraction. An obstacle, even - the von Aegir heir was the only student, besides Lady Edelgard herself, who had spent any amount of time with Hubert when his life was still his own. He could realize, could remember...

The mage dismisses the thought as utter foolishness. Ferdinand had looked him directly in the eyes and seen nothing more than a commoner, a bastard. Someone so far beneath his notice that he barely deserved acknowledgment.   


Such haughty eyes could not possibly see the truth. Hubert was safe.   


There was a knock on his door.   


He tosses his hair, tucking it behind his head and restoring sight to both eyes. His fingers begin to creep towards the knife secured at his belt.   


"Brother? I didn't see you in the dining hall, so I brought you some dinner."   


Hubert's shoulders relax ever so slightly. _Lysithea. _And Lysithea alone, according to the code which they had established before departing for the monastery - had she had company, she would have referred to him by name rather than merely "Brother," alerting him that he needed to have his "Albain" disguise firmly in place before opening the door.   


He slips the glasses back on - the hall is quiet at this hour, but here in the monastery the risk of passerby is ever-present - and opens the door. Lysithea, her uniform perfectly pressed without a single wrinkle, stands in the darkened passageway. In her hands are a tumbler of water and a plate piled high with food: skewers of meat, a chunk of brown bread, a small portion of pickled cabbage, and a rather large slice of white cake dotted with peaches. Hubert raises an eyebrow wordlessly at the last of these, and his "sister" responds with a guilty blush that makes him suspect the cake was not intended for him.   


Lysithea shoves the plate and cup into his hands and goes to sit on his bed, legs crossed primly at the ankles. "Studying all day again, Brother?" she asks as he pulls the door closed once again.   


For a moment, Hubert hesitates. Part of him doesn't want to admit what happened...but information is power, and Lysithea is one of the few people in the world who he can truly trust.   


"I attempted to, yes. But one of those nobles from the Black Eagles blundered into the classroom, and I had to set him right."   


He hopes she'll let it lie.   


She doesn't. "Oh?" The girl he has truly come to think of as his little sister matches him raised snowy brow for brow. "Which one? Von Hevring? Von Bergliez?"   


Hubert sighs. "Von Aegir."   


Her frown deepens. "You've got to be _careful, _Albain. It's like Claude said, you can't get close to.....t-to...any of them. He knew you...."   


Hubert shakes his head, feeling the too-long swish of snow-white hair hit his shoulders. "An occasional playmate ten years ago, Lysithea. Who has spent the intervening time thinking of little but himself, his looks and his title and his _nobility..._He will not remember me. Ferdinand von Aegir poses no danger to what needs doing."   


She doesn't respond. He doesn't know if he spoke those words aloud for her benefit or his own.   


He doesn't let himself think about it. Too many thoughts already this day have been dedicated to the irritating noble. It is time to turn his brain to other, more productive pursuits.   


Quickly, as though his hands need something to do, he snatches up a skewer of meat and takes a careful bite. The gamey taste of bear, heavily spiced in the Duscur style, assails the "Ordelia bastard's" taste buds.   


"There are no bears near the monastery. The usual hunting patrols wouldn't have brought in something like this." It's not a question. He's studied everything he could possibly learn about Garreg Mach and its environs before departing.   


"Claude and the others are back. They brought it with them. The new professor and the new Knight-Captain hunted it together, apparently."   


An icy spike of fear worms its way down Hubert's spine. "The new....?"   


She nods. "Claude will be by later to share the information he gathered on the journey. Apparently, bandits attacked and the professor they'd taken to supervise the exercise turned tail and ran. A mercenary captain - Jeralt - and his daughter rescued them, and Lady Rhea was so impressed she assigned the daughter to our house immediately. Claude barely stopped to eat before running off to show the new professor around, so all I got from him was her name. Byleth Eisner. Heard it before?"   


_Eisner. _"No. I...I haven't." He'd heard of Jeralt the Blade-Breaker, of course. One couldn't share a class with Leonie Pinelli and _not _encounter the name. But even Hubert, trained as he had been in the seeking out of information, had not heard so much as a whisper of the fact that the Blade-Breaker had a daughter.

He says what he knows both he and Lysithea are thinking. "This isn't good."   


It was an understatement. The professor initially assigned to the Golden Deer house had been a minor Alliance noble, some distant cousin of Acheron the Weathervane with no more smarts nor spine than his infamous relative. Someone who Hubert could count on to not realize what was happening just under his nose. But he was gone, replaced by this...enigma.   


_Byleth Eisner.   
_

Who was she? Ally or obstruction? Friend or foe? Only time would tell. Well, time and his usual careful, extensive information-gathering.   


"I won't let her disrupt my plans," he affirms, voice steely with a blade-sharp determination honed by years of waiting and watching, hiding and listening. "I've prepared for this for too long."   


Timidly, Lysithea stands and puts a hand on his shoulder. The height difference between them makes the gesture somewhat awkward, yet Hubert draws comfort from it nonetheless.   


For a moment, they simply stand there, merely existing in the same space. Two once-strangers, now brother and sister bound first by trauma, second by lies and finally by genuine affection and care. Neither speaks. Neither needs to.   


When Lysithea finally breaks the silence, it is not to discuss Byleth Eisner, nor Ferdinand von Aegir, nor plans which draw ever closer to unfolding.   


Instead, she asks a single question.   


"Brother? Albain?"   


"Yes, Lysithea?"   


"Are you going to eat your cake?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter took so long to write. I wanted to put it up during Ferdibert Week, and I had the chapter all ready to go, but...anxiety struck. There is so much amazing Ferdibert content out there and I'm so not confident in my writing compared to all of the fantastic Ferdibert Week stuff people made. I love all of the fanfic and fanart so much and wish I had a place to talk about Ferdibert with / could be a more active part of the larger Ferdibert community.

**Author's Note:**

> This...is an idea I had pretty much since I started playing the game. It basically makes a small change to the Slithers' plotting and explores what happens from there. I'm very nervous to post it because it makes some major differences to the actual plot (including backstory and stuff) of Three Houses. I hope you all enjoy!


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